The author of the lyrics of this most famous antiwar song of any time is Pete Seeger, though ist best known version has probably been sung by Joan Baez.

According to the author himself, Pete Seeger was inspired by a passage of Quiet Don by the Russian writer Michail Sholokhov [Михайл Шoлoхoв] (who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for this work, in 1964), in which three verses from an Ukrainian folksong were mentioned. Pete Seeger kept on looking for the full lyrics of the folksong in vain for years and years, but he kept those three verses hoping he could use them one day or another. Happily enough, this actually happened, though first in a LP which passed almost unnoticed, Rainbow Quest. The song was then recorded under their name by Kingston Trio (1960), who had “listened to it” and totally ignored that it had been written and recorded by Pete Seeger four years earlier (they believed it were a folksong). Pete Seeger solved the problem with a simple phone call…

Joe Hickerson.

The tune, as stated by Pete Seeger, is taken from a lumberjack version of an American folksong, Drill ye tarriers drill; but for the origin and the full history of the song, you are advised to go to this webpage, a very important one indeed, also because it allows you to download some videoclips in which Pete Seeger tells the history of the song and, above all, sing it in full (the videoclips are in .RMV format).

Joe Hickerson's contribution to the song lyrics composition has been fully recognized. He probably assembled the original Russian verses and wrote the 4th and 5th verse of the song (the 6th verse is a repetition of the 1st so to "close the chain").

Where have all the flowers gone,
long time passing?
Where have all the flowers gone,
long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Gone to young girls, every one!
When will they ever learn,
when will they ever learn?

Where have all the young girls gone,
long time passing?
Where have all the young girls gone,
long time ago?
Where have all the young girls gone?
Gone to young men, every one!
When will they ever learn,
when will they ever learn?

Where have all the young men gone,
long time passing?
Where have all the young men gone,
long time ago?
Where have all the young men gone?
Gone to soldiers, every one!
When will they ever learn,
when will they ever learn?

And where have all the soldiers gone,
long time passing?
Where have all the soldiers gone,
long time ago?
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards, every one!
When will they ever learn,
when will they ever learn?

And where have all the graveyards gone,
long time passing?
Where have all the graveyards gone,
long time ago?
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Gone to flowers, every one!
When will they ever learn,
oh when will they ever learn?

Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago.
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls picked them, every one.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?

[Bb] [Gbm] [Eb] [F]
Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?
[Bb] [Gbm] [Cm] [F7]
Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?
[Bb] [Gbm]
Where have all the flowers gone?
[Eb] [F]
Young girls have picked them everyone.
[Eb] [Bb]
Oh, when will they ever learn?
[Eb] [F] [Bb] [Gbm]
Oh when will they ever learn?

Where have all the young girls gone, long time passing?
Where have all the young girls gone, long time ago?
Where have all the young girls gone,
Gone for husbands everyone.
Oh when will they every learn?
Oh when will they ever learn?

Where have all the husbands gone, long time passing?
Where have all the husbands gone, long time ago?
Where have all the husbands gone,
Gone for soldiers everyone
Oh when will they ever learn?
Oh when will they ever learn.

Where have all the soldiers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the soldiers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards, everyone.
Oh, when will they every learn?
Oh when will they ever learn?

Where have all the graveyards gone, long time passing?
Where have all the graveyards gone, lone time ago?
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Gone to flowers, everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh when will they ever learn?

Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls have picked them everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh when will they ever learn?

The following are the verses from the Ukrainian folksong (in fact, they are in Russian) quoted by Michail Sholokhov in And Quiet Flows The Don [Тихий Дон], which, according to Pete Seeger himself, gave him inspiration for Where Have All The Flowers Gone. We reproduce them from the this page from the German edition of Wikipedia (with a misspelling we have emended), also including a full German and English translation. A Romanized version of the Russian verses has been added.

And where are the geese?
They've run in the reeds.
And where are the reeds?
The girls have plucked them.
And where are the girls?
They've all taken husbands.
And where are the Cossacks?
They all have gone to war.

The German version by Max Colpet (1962, the crucial years of the Berlin Wall and of the Cuban missile crisis) is at least as famous as the original, if not even more famous. It was sung by an absolutely exceptional singer, Marlene Dietrich (see also this German website, where you can also find very useful scores and links to accords and tablatures and, particularly, this other website, where a .WAV file of 1962 recording is available for download), who also sung Pete Seeger’s original in English and the French version. The song is very well known also in Joan Baez’s interpretation, who, to tell the truth, had a slightly awkward German accent…
With the same title, Sag mir wo die Blumen sind, Friedrich Kurz has composed a musical (1993) inspired by Marlene Dietrich’s life.

Max Colpet (helped by the very structure of the English original) used the traditional German Kettenlied (chain song) for his translation; very old examples of it are to be found in German folk literature, like a song from 1782 based on a poem of Georg Jacobi. However, the structure of Kettenlied is much older; it has lots of exemples in the popular balladry of Germany and of many other countries (see Zogen einst fünf wilde Schwäne, considered by many as the direct antecedent of Jacobi’s poem, and thus also of this German version; the folksong seems in tis turn to have originated in Lithuania), and a number of scholars see also connections with the medieval tradition of the so-called Ubi sunt?, having its best know exemple in the Ballade des dames du temps jadis by François Villon.

PS: I would like to thank my friend Mauro Venier, another “historic” visitor to the Genoa supporters’ newsgroup (ISCG), who reported me in private the news about Marlene Dietrich, which I sincerely ignored.

Johann Georg Jacobi's Poem (1782) which Max Colpet probably used as a model for his German version, Sagt mir wo die Blumen sind. As a matter of fact, it shows a great resemblance with the poem. As stated, Jacobi himself had used a much older Kettenlied as a model for his poem; in someone's opinion (as f.ex. in this debate from the Mudcat Café, or according to the German edition of Wikipedia) it could even be Zogen einst fünf wilde Schwäne.

The following song in Chinese, entitled "These Flowers" (1996) (the lyrics are by the pop singer Pu Shu) is a self-standing song. However, its last part consists of a sort of "synthesis" of Where have all the flowers gone in English. The song has been sung also by a well-known Taiwanese-American singer, Fan Weiqi. The Chinese lyrics are provided with an English translation.

那片笑声让我想起我的那些花儿
在我生命每个角落静静为我开着
我曾以为我会永远守在他身旁
今天我们已经离去在人海茫茫
他们都老了吧 他们在哪里呀
我们就这样各自奔天涯
啦……想她啦…她还在开吗 啦……去呀
她们已经被风吹走散落在天涯
有些故事还没讲完那就算了吧
那些心情在岁月中已经难辨真假
如今这里荒草丛生没有了鲜花
好在曾经拥有你们的春秋和冬夏
啦……想她啦…她还在开吗 啦……去呀
她们已经被风吹走散落在天涯
他们都老了吧 他们在哪里呀
我们就这样各自奔天涯
Where have all the flowers gone
Where the flowers gone
Where have all the young girls gone
Where did they all gone
Where have all the young men gone
Where the soldiers gone
Where have all the graveyards gone
Where have all they gone?

That hail of laughter reminds me of the flowers I have had
They blossomed out silently for me on every corner of my life
I thought I would be with him forever
Today, we have been apart in the ocean of crowds
Are they all old? Where have they gone?
Spontaneously, we have been running around severally
La…miss her…is she still flowering?…la…go
They have been blown away and scattered in the end of the earth
Some stories didn’t reach their ends, let them be.
Those feelings cannot be judged true or false with the lapse of time
Instead of flowers, now, there’s covered with clusters of weeds
Fortunately, I used to have you all there from Spring to winter
La…miss her…is she still flowering?…la…go
They have been blown away and scattered in the end of the earth
Are they all old? Where have they gone?
Spontaneously, we have been running around severally
Where have all the flowers gone
Where the flowers gone
Where have all the young girls gone
Where did they all gone
Where have all the young men gone
Where the soldiers gone
Where have all the graveyards gone
Where have all they gone?

On the meaning and function of the so-called "pacifist songs" in Croatia during the wars of the 90s see the note to the croatian version of Lili Marleen. The version was composed in 1991 (the same year the Yugoslavian wars broke out) and was first performed by the band then bearing the name of "Zlatni Dukati".

The following Croatian version, as specified by its contributor Veljko, was used in the “Pollitika” forum (a Croatian political discussion forum), in a commentary in the aftermath of the Neo-Nazi Odessa massacre of May 2, 2014. A peace song, as it is stated in the forum, used “against propaganda and violence”. The Croatian version of the song is remarkable for being very close to the original English lyrics; we reproduce here also the whole commentary in the Croatian language. [CCG/AWS Staff]

The following Danish version is clearly declared as a translation of Oleg Nesterov's Russian version, but it is nevertheless close to the basic English lyrics. It is reproduced from a Danis Life Schools page including an article named Da Mikhail Sholokhov inspireret Pete Seeger til at skabe sange? (When did Michail Sholohov inspire Pete Seeger to compose songs?), including a history of the song apparently very close to the introduction to this site page. [CCG/AWS Staff]

Sauvo Puhtila, born 1928 and deceased 2014, has been one of the most popular figures of the Finnish radio broadcasting with his polyhedric activity (song composer and translator, presenter etc.). He was also well known for writing and composing songs under a long series of pseudonyms: the one he used most was perhaps Saukki (a diminutive of Sauvo), but he also was Veikko Vallas, Jim, Merja, S. Puustinen, P.L. Saarinen, Pekka Saarto, Salla S., Santeri, Jukka Terä, Tikka, Timjami, Solja Tuuli. He translated Where Have all the Flowers gone into Finnish 1965, as “Veikko Vallas-Saukki”. The song really marked a whole period in Finland: it was first performed by the band [[https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kukonpojat|Kukonpojat] (also known as “The Chickens”, which is the exact English translation of kukonpojat), formed by Juha Virkkunen, Jouko Eräkare, Tapio Lipponen and Seppo Porkka. The song has been later performed by other artists, e.g. Ossi Ahlapuro (1970, in an album bearing the same name as the song) and Ritva Oksanen (1972, in her first album Ritva Oksasen aarteet. [CCG/AWS Staff]

Où vont les fleurs?, the French version of Where have all the flowers gone?, is, together with the German version, the best known version of this song. One of the translators was Francis Lemarque, a very famous pacifist singer still known for Quand un Soldat. The song was recorded in Paris in 1962 under the direction of Burt Bacharach and performed by Marlene Dietrich. It was then included in the album Mythos und Legende. We think that these names are great anough to justify its glory...

Great job !
I'd really like to see a Basque version.
And, if you're interested, this link will lead you to the Gaeilge version of the song!

A version into Irish Gaelic (or, simply, Irish) contributed by ARZ, who wished to see a Basque version of the song: we satisfy now his request with pleasure, though with some delay. Note. Several sites (this, for exemple) mention another Irish version by Feargal Ó Béarra, Cá bhfuil siad uainn, scoth na mbláth?; but we haven't found it. For the moment, insofar. [CCG/AWS Staff]

The standard Japanese version by Takashi Ota, 1966, as reproduced from this page through the help of the relevant ja.wikipedia page. At the end of each verse you may include facultatively the original English line When will they even learn? The version was first performed in the same year by the band The Rigannies (Riganizu in Japanese), but has been performed later by a large number of artists. [CCG/AWS Staff]

L'esecuzione originale dei Rigannies (1966)
The original performance by The Rigannies (1966)

The following Icelandic cover by Jón Sigurðsson was performed by Ragnar Bjarnason and Elly Vilhjálms. Only the tune and the “chain texture” of Pete Seeger's original song were left; the lyrics are a “love-and-regret song” where someone is regretting a place he loves, the “blue flower” that was there, the children playing there, a young girl he presumably loved and everything. The cover was released 1965; Elly and Ragnar, performing as a duo, recorded it in the four song mini-album Elly og Ragnar með hljómsveit svavar gests. [CCG/AWS Staff]

Anna Maria Geertruida "Annie" Schmidt was born on 20 May 1911 in Kapelle, Zeeland in the Netherlands. She was the daughter of Dutch Reformed minister Johannes Daniel Schmidt (1871–1951) and school teacher Geertruida Maria Bouhuijs. She had an elder brother Wim and two older sisters also named Anna M. G. who both died young and before she was born. She was called Zus (English: Sis or Sister) by her family. She was a solitary child, who found an escape in writing poetry and fiction, even though she once received a grade of 2 (on a scale of 1 to 10) in Dutch class —she would later brag about the report card. Her mother encouraged her and sent some of her poetry to Willem Kloos. After secondary school in Goes and working as an au pair in Germany, she began to study for a job as a librarian, an occupation she held until 1946. In 1947, she embarked upon her literary career while writing for the Amsterdam newspaper "Het Parool", and soon started writing songs and sketches for such luminaries as Wim Sonneveld and Wim Kan. Her literary career took off in the early 1950s, and included song- and playwriting for the theatre, scripts for radio and television shows, columns for newspapers, and children's books. Her final book, "Wat Ik Nog Weet", a book of childhood memories, appeared in 1992. She used euthanasia a day after her 84th birthday (with a combination of pills and alcohol and was buried in Amsterdam. By the time she died in 1995 (of heart failure caused by suicide), she was an icon of the Dutch literary world, and even her death—peaceful, in the company of her friends and family—continues to be referenced in the Dutch media and played an important role in discussions of euthanasia. Her life became the subject of plays in 2003 and 2009, her work continues to be in print, and her plays are still performed (such as 1980's Er valt een traan op de tompoes, a play discussing euthanasia, performed again in 1999). - en.wikipedia

Jaap Fischer's Dutch version was released in 1963 and is probably one of the first translations into a language other than English, and certainly the very first Dutch version. It was released as the "A side" of an antiwar single (the B side is a ferocious anti-militarist ballad, Jan Soldaat. Jaap Fischer's version has a structure very similar to the well known German version by Max Colpet, released in the previous year (1962). The two languages are in any case very similar to each other. [CCG/AWS Staff]

The Persian (Fârsi) translation is reproduced from the relevant page of fa.wikipedia. It is reproduced in a “schematic” (abridged) form to avoid repetitions, something we don't really like in this site; but we kept this format due to objective reading difficulties. [CCG/AWS Staff]

The translator of the song, Wanda Sieradzka de Ruig (September 29, 1923, Łódź, Poland – January 1, 2008, Haarlem, Netherlands) was a well known Polish author, journalist, poet and translator. Sieradzka graduated from the Institut d'Études Françaises in Toulouse, France. She worked as a press liaison for the group, Section IV, at the Command Staff headquarters of the Polish National Army in Warsaw during World War II. She wrote for the office under the pseudonym, "Elżbieta." She was first published as a poet in 1945 in a Polish magazine, which was published in Switzerland. She worked as a Polish diplomat in the 1940s following the end of World War II. She later worked as a journalist from 1950 until 1960. In 1960, Sieradzka made a career switch to television when she was hired as a producer in the music and variety department of Polish Television. She remained at the station until her retirement in 1988. She often translated screenplays, television scripts and theater plays into Polish for use on television. Sieradzka married her Dutch husband, J.A. de Ruig, in 1986, living for many years with him in Haarlem. - en.wikipedia

Sława Przybylska (born 2 November 1931 in Międzyrzec Podlaski, Poland) is a Polish singer who became popular in 1957 with the song Pamiętasz była jesień ("Do you remember, it was autumn...") Before her musical career, she graduated from art school and then studied foreign trade at the Central School of Foreign Service.

The following Portuguese version has been prepared on purpose by my Brazilian colleague and friend Jarmila Ferreira Martins, as it proved impossible to find even a single translation on the Web, by a known author or by the occasional translator. Yet, Jarmila has made a splendid and fully singable translation.

The authors of the Russian version are Oleg Nesterov, the band leader and founder of Megapolis, and another member of the band, Masha Makarova (also an independent singer). The version is dated in fact 1996 and has been included in the album Гроза в деревне.

Megapolis are a Moscow-based rock group started by Oleg Nesterov in 1986. Unlike many of its contemporaries whose careers were meddled with (or worse) by the Soviet regime, Megapolis lived a comparatively charmed existence that began just before the thaw of perestroika. Their music combined elements of electronica with pop/rock, and they were one of the first groups to explore the possibilities of the music video as an art form to accompany musical works. Megapolis are also notable for their role in promoting the careers of young indie musicians in the new millennium. Megapolis's debut, Utro (Morning), was self-released in May 1987. A couple months after their debut, Megapolis were standouts at a festival of the Moscow Rock Laboratory. The press and public were immediately attracted to their comfort in the then-uncharted sphere of electronic music, a rarity at the time. In this period, Oleg Nesterov led the group with guitar and vocals, Andrei Belov played bass, Mikhail Alesin was the drummer, Aleksandr Suzdalev and Arkady Martinenko played keyboards, and Igor Zhigunov was featured on percussion.

It didn't take long for Megapolis to be signed to the government label Melodia, which re-released the group's debut, Utro, and released its second album, Bednie Ludi (Poor People), which was considered characteristic of the Moscow sound at the time. In 1989 the group filmed its first two music videos and played concerts all over Russia. Megapolis' relationship with Germany found its beginning in a 20-minute program about the group on German radio and a performance at an international German music festival in August. The group toured with American rockers the Beatnigs. During this period the group's lineup was significantly altered: Mikhail Gabolaevim returned to replace Andrei Belov on bass, Andrei Nadolsky became the group's new drummer, and from June to December Yuriy Matzenov played guitar. That summer the group appeared in the film Nash Chelovek v San-Remo (Our Man in San Remo), whose soundtrack included four of the group's songs.

Pyostrie Veterochki (Motley Breezes) was released in July 1990 by the Mosfilm studio, with the hit single "Novie Moskovskie Sirtaki" (New Moscow Sirtaki), whose lyrics were adapted from a poem by Vosnesenky. Another song on the album, "Tam" (There), was adapted from a poem by Josef Brodsky. Keyboardist Aleksandr Suzdalev left the group in 1991, and a new album, Zhenskoe Serdtzo (A Woman's Heart), was also recorded that year. The group started a project to translate Russian hits into German, and then in February 1992 took off for Germany to perform and make TV and radio appearances. In December the group lost drummer Andrei Nadolsky. In 1993 Megapolis occupied themselves with music videos, dance remixes, festivals, and the preparation of a self-titled album, which was to be released on a German label. Its German release occurred in August 1994, and in September, it was released in Russia.

In December the group welcomed drummer Aleksandr Filonenko and guitarist Andrei Kifiyak, and May of the next year bid farewell to guitarist Yuriy Matzenov. Megapolis spent 1996 assembling their next release, the German-recorded Groza v Derevne (Rural Threat), and found time to give their best to current president Boris Yeltsin (who was currently undergoing heart surgery) with a special music video, Vizdorablivayte, Boris Nikolaevich! (Get Well Soon, Boris Nikolaevich!), which quickly joined the hit parade on music TV. The new album, released at the end of the year, was lyrical and meditative, a departure from previous compositions.

By 1998 the group had become an institution of Russian rock history. That year Malenkaya Istoriya (Short Story) -- a documentary film comprised of ten years of Megapolis' concert footage, archived materials, videos, and interviews -- and the first best-of album were released. The group's co-leaders, Gabolaevim and Nesterov, began to give back to the rock community, producing groups like Masha I Medvedi (Masha & the Bears) and Lakmus, in 1999 founding their own label, Snegeri Music. Also, a new guitarist, Maksim Leonov, joined the ensemble. In 2000 the group was playing mostly acoustic shows with new drummer Aleksey Kodlubovich. In the following years the group seemed to retreat from public view, but in 2006 a new song was composed and, in typical Megapolis style, a music video followed in 2007.

The following Romanized version is only useful to give an idea of how the Russian language sounds, and it makes reference for all further Romanized versions of Russian, Byelorussian, Ukrainian and Bulgarian songs (excepted Serbian, which already has its own latinica. Our transcription being strictly graphemic, it differs slightly from that used by Slavist scholars (f.ex., the Cyrillic grapheme is always transcribed [ x ] according to British and American usage). It does NOT reproduce the effective pronunciation of Russian, which would need an accurate (and very complicated), fully phonetic transcription.

The translation by Žanna Bičevskaja is dated 1976 and is probably the very first translation ever made into the Russian language. Žanna Bičevskaja composed it for the 1976 concert movie Найди свою песню (“Find your Song”). Žanna Bičevskaja, born in Moscow on June 17, 1944, is a prominent Russian singer; she is considered to have been deeply influenced by Bulat Okudžava. The lyrics are followed by a transcription. [RV]

The Serbian version is practically the Croatian version 3 which has been adapted to the phonetic characteristics of the Ekavian dialect (the dialect the literary Serbian languages is based upon) and transcribed into Cyrillic characters. We chose for this “operation” the Croatian version 3 as it is no doubt the one most correct and closest to the original. [CCG/AWS Staff]

Tomaž Domicelj, born in Ljubljana on March 11, 1948, is a Slovenian folksinger, guitarist ans Slavist. He first studied violin and harmonica, turning later to guitar; he founded together with Jernej Jung and Janez Bončin-Benč the band Helioni. Tomaž is graduated in English language and literature; among the things he has translated is to be mentioned Woody Guthrie's autobiography Bound for Glory. His version of Where Have all the Flowers gone is dated 2011. [GdN]

The Spanish version by Rolando Alarcón, the great Chilean folksinger who was a “preliminary victim” of the fascist regime, is dated 1969 and was released in the album El mundo folklórico de Rolando Alarcón. [RV]

The following Spanish version has been prepared (!) by the Latin American Liturgy Network (RLL, Red Latinoamericana de Liturgía), an organization concerned with church songs for the Holy Mass. We reproduce it from the webpage "Recursos Cristianos" (Christian Resources), which hovewer attributes it to Marlene Dietrich, the unforgettable German actress and singer, an oppositor of Nazism and fighter for peace. A further token of the world renown of the German version performed by Marlene Dietrich.

"I picked this up from Enn Kokk's blog. Beppe Wolgers wrote some 1000 lyrics in the 50's and 60's. He was also an actor and entertainer. He played the part of Pippi Longstocking's father in those films and did several other fine movie apperances. I found your lovely site while browsing for lyrics for this song in different languages. I plan to do a sort of relay-version with one verse in each language. I'm trying to find versions in Norwegian and Danish." [Tomas Nilsson]

Mr John Bertil Wolgers, born in Stockholm on November 10, 1928 and deceased in Östersund on August 6, 1986, has been -as specified by Tomas Nilsson- a very prolific songwriter: he composed more than 1,000 songs. In addition to this, he also translated into his native Swedish a lot of successful songs and even the Bachianas brasileiras by Heitor Villa Lobos. Yet, not many would imagine that mr Wolgers, who acted under the stage name of “Beppe”, is a figure tremendously well known to whole generations of children (and not only children!) throughout the world: he was an actor, too, and it was he who played the role of Capt. Ephraim, Pippi Longstocking's father, in the celebrated TV series drawn from Astrid Lindgren's still more celebrated tales. And, due to coincidence, it is definitely impressive that this version was contributed to this site by someone called “Nilsson”, that is a “mr Nilsson” bearing the same name as Pippi's monkey! Among the 1,000 songs written by Beppe Wolgers (or by capt. Ephraim, if you like best), there's also Where Have all the Flowers gone (translated as Inga blommor finns det mer “There are no more flowers” or “You can find flowers no more”); it is a very old version. It is dated 1962, so f.ex. in the same year as the best known version ever made in any language, the German Sagt mir wo die Blumen sind by Max Colpet and Marlene Dietrich. Of course, here we thank mr Tomas Nilsson heartily for his contribution, even with some delay; and not only for his contribution, but also for the beautiful words he expressed for our page. The song has been interpreted and recorded by Lars Lönndahl, a prominent Swedish singer born in the same year as Beppe Wolgers (1928), in the album En kväll med Towa och Lasse (1964, skivmärket Teldec, Hamburg). [CCG/AWS Staff]

Thank you for your wonderful page about "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" I am the Turkish translator on your page. my name is Oğuz Tarihmen.

Now I would like to contribute to your page with another translation: into Swahili. This language is very common in East Africa and a lingua franca in broad parts of Africa. You can say, it is the most common African language on earth.

I used to live in Uganda for 14 months and learned Swahili there. Now I am doing professional translations from Swahili into Turkish for the first time in my country.

Even though, Swahili is not my mother tongue, I suppose I have got a good work at the end of the day.

Again, like the Turkish version, the Swahili version is singable...
Oğuz Tarihmen, 24/01/2007

As a songwriter and a Turkish street musician, 9 years ago, I had translated the song "Where have all the flowers gone" via the German translation. I was a school boy at the German School, Istanbul, so I used the German translation as the starting point of my Turkish translation. Today I am a teacher of the German language. After some time, I realized that the original of the song is in English. So, I crosschecked it and did some correction after which my translation has become its final version. My translation is linear to the German translation, then.

My Turkish translation is fully singable. In deed, I had sung it in English, German and Turkish many years in my band during my career as a street musician. Some people in Turkey know my version of the song in Turkish and like it very much. But speaking in professional terms, the Turkish version of the song is widely unknown.

Note: For the lyrics in Turkish characters, please give me a mail address where I can send it as a word document in attachment.

(Oğuz Tarihmen)

Thank you Oğuz for your splendid and precious Turkish translation you kindly contributed to our website. If you have other antiwar songs translated into your native language, please don't hesitate to send us them too.
There's no need of sending the Turkish characters. A set of Turkish characters is already provided in all Word Office versions and I have a basic knowledge of Turkish which allowed me to restore the correct spelling. Thank you, anyway, and see you soon!...ve teşekkür ederim!
[Riccardo Venturi]

Oles Ilchenko's Ukrainian version, recorded by Maria Burmaka. The video clearly shows a girl singing the song on a party or some school show: it is the only video of the Ukrainian version to be found in the Web. [CCG/AWS Staff]

The following Hungarian version of Where Have all the Flowers gone has been wrongly attributed, until now, to Péter Gerendás (a prominent Hungarian folksinger who recorded it, as a matter of fact, in his 1992 album Memento, dedicated to the victims of war and of the Shoah). Actually, it was composed by Tibor Kalmár, mainly known as a film director, and first recorded by the singer Erzsi Kovács (1928-2014), who also included it in her 1985 album Tűzpiros virág (“Fire-red Flower”).

Erzsi Kovács experienced a tragic story in her youth. In 1949, at age 21, Kovács met and fell in love with football player Sándor Szűcs. As both were already married at that time, there was no possibility of being together and they tried to escape to the West. An undercover ÁVH agent betrayed them and their defection attempt failed. In 1951, she was sentenced to four years in prison. Szűcs did not ask for mercy, and, despite interventions by Ferenc Puskás and Ferenc Szusza, he was executed by hanging on June 4, 1951, at age 30. Erzsi Kovács was released from prison in 1954, and at first she worked as an administrator, then resumed her singing career. She died in 2014 at age 86. [CCG/AWS Staff]

The sort of the following Hungarian version has really been curious: it turned from a pacifist and anti-militarist song (as it is seen and sung throughout the world) into a song which is widely sung in Hungary, especially in recent times, on military and nationalist meetings, and even (performed by Jaszmagyarok on concerts supporting Jobbik, the extreme right, antisemite, racist and ultra-xenophobic “Movement for Better Hungary” (as you can see in this video where Jaszmagyarok are singing the song with a nice banner saying “Hungary to Hungarians” in the background). To sum up, for many Hungarian people the old antiwar song turned into sort of nationalist hymn to the soldiers fallen for the holy Fatherland; well, maybe Jobbik fans don't know that the song was written by a communist! Yet nothing in this version is different from all others in any language, and even from the other Hungarian version it is quite often confused with, with interchangeable lines and verses. As we couldn't find who translated the lyrics (if any), we attribute it here to the actress Mária Mezei (1909-1983), by her complete name Mária Viola Terézia Mezei, who changed for the stage the final “i” of her family name into “y”: Mária Mezey. Mária Mezei recorded in the 60's a memorable version of the song in the “Marlene Dietrich style” (actually, her voice sounded much like that of Dietrich). Mária Mezei was in the 40's an acclaimed star of the Hungarian cinema; she also had a famous love story with a most celebrated Hungarian writer, lo scrittore Sándor Márai.

You have to admire her tenacity: Joan Baez gave her heart and soul to peace activism during the Vietnam War, and even when the U.S. government is dumb enough to get us involved in yet another quagmire, she is still dedicated to spreading peace through song. Joan said before she performed for us tonight, "I didn't need an invitation to come here-- I had already bought my plane ticket!!"

It was understandably an amazing experience for, ahem, older Camp Casey supporters to hear Joan sing years after they had first heard her during the 60's. And even though my previous experience with Joan Baez was limited to Jenny's idolization of her in "Forrest Gump," her presence alone on the stage reminded me how just how historic Camp Casey is.
(Emily Sharpe)

Hi,
I'm writin' from Poland. I'm very suprised- where did you take from all of this multi-language versions? I can't remember Sława Kwaśniewska cause I'm only 18 but my Parents of course. She's a great sing star. See You ;)(Adam)

Hello Adam!
There's really a huge work of daily research behind this site. Thousands of sites, web pages and also books, magazines and other paper material...and, of course, free contributors from a host of countries (also from Poland, of course). But the real core of our research method is the use of keywords. As we are a multilingual staff, if we are looking, say, for a Polish version of "Where Have All The Flowers Gone" we usually start by roughly translating into Polish what we have identified as keywords ("where", "flowers", "have gone"); then we proceed Googling. Sometimes it works immediately; sometimes after brief search; sometimes after long search; sometimes after years' long search; and, sometimes, it doesn't work at all. So, we need patience but never give up and hope in good luck and in contributors! Thank you Adam, and see you! [RV]

Wow - Thank you !!!!!!!!!!! I´m so suprised to find this page googling for the song. I am a german singer and so happy to get the words in all these wonderful languages.
Thanks to everyone of you, translating the song for global use.
God bless you - und ganz herzlichen Dank!
Helen Jordan, Nürnberg - Germany

Thank you Helen for the message you left on this page; it's really a great reward for our hard work. We seize the occasion to invite all readers of and contributors to our website to visit your homepage. Of course, Helen, please feel free to contribute any of your songs if you think they match the topic of our website. Mit Freundschaft und Dankbarkeit! [AWS/CCG Staff]

Greetings from Czech Republic.
Oh my god! I love this song so much. It is the first song I learned by heart (I mean, not the czech version:D) I love how Dalida, Marlene Dietrich and Judita Čeřovská sungs it. May they rest in peace. Bye and thank you.)

“In May 1964 Beti Wyn Jones was asked to provide contrasting items at a Traditional Welsh Concert given at the Proclamation Concert of the Urdd National Eisteddfod to be held at Cardiff in 1965. Y Meillion party was formed and sang light and popular music to Welsh words. It met with immediate success and glowing tributes were paid to this talented group in the press. They have since appeared on B.B.C. and T.W.W. television programmes. Wren Records soon received many requests for a record by this outstanding group of youngsters.

Members of the party, apart from one, who is a Welsh speaking London girl, are all former pupils of the Bryntaf Welsh School,

Beti Wyn Jones, a native of Brynsiencyn, Anglesey, now of Cardiff, and trainer of the Group, has been highly successful for many years in teaching young people the art of Penillion Singing.

The Group is accompanied on the guitar by Michael Watson, Principal of the Spanish Guitar Centres at Cardiff and Bristol. He has appeared frequently on both T.W.W. and B.B.C. television.”

Almost nothing is left in the Web of the disc recorded 1964 by the Welsh group “Y Meillion”, formed by six girls conducted by mrs Beti Wyn Jones. Yet it appears that the disc, named "Caneuon modern" (“Modern Songs”) and released (WRE 1005) by Wren Records of Llandybie, includes the very first rock and pop songs translated into the Welsh language, and among them a version of “Where Have all the Flowers gone” translated by Mair Kitchener Davies and called “I ble'r aeth y blodau?”. There's absolutely nothing left in the Web about this version, no videos or lyrics are available. So, we judged necessary to mention this rare version also in the hope of getting it found one day or another. The disc also included among other things the Welsh translation of Blowin' in the Wind, “Siglo'n y gwynt” (translated by Rhydwen Williams). Who knows, this page might come to a Meillion girl's view, now probably a nice lady in her seventies... [CCG/AWS Staff]

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